Monday, August 07, 2017

BEYOND THE SHADOW: A few notes and a mystery by Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

To assess this poetry - and not the poet – we have to look at each poem and seewhat it brings since it is a collection, hence coming from different periods and with noconnections among them. Then after examining the poems a few ideas may emerge. Hereare some of these ideas emerging from the samsara of this collection.

What is surprising at once for that poetry written in English is that in its form itself Ifeel the Indo-Aryan syntax of the native language of the author that I assume to be Hindithough I have in mind the languages I know, Sinhala and Pali. The second poem is typicalwith its numerous present participles that give elements that have just been sort of fulfilledas if they were preterit participles: fulfilled circumstances from whose fulfillment a visionmay emerge and in this poem what emerges is at the beginning: death of course thatcannot be as long as these circumstances have not been fulfilled. That will lead us toanother remark later.

At the same time his reference to haikus is true and false. These poems apart fromone or two very short ones are not haikus. But it is also true because the poet usesstandard concatenated static elements to build images that are at times striking and this ishaiku-ish. We have thus chains of such concatenated static vignettes or cameos and themeaning can only come from the samsaric chain and not from each small tableau or anylogical or rational stringing of them. This is true of many poems.

But poem 28 is a mixture of both techniques. It is a haiku by its shortness and itsstriking conclusion of “a ship on vacation” that sinks. But at the same time he transforms anegative preterit participle clause into an English negative causal explanation, which ithardly is. All the poems should be examined at that level of the intertwining of threesyntaxes from three different linguistic traditions, the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Europeantraditions that are quite close and yet quite different even though they have the sameorigin somewhere in the Middle East probably on the Iranian plateau. The third tradition isdefinitely different since the languages of the haiku are Japanese or Chinese, isolatinglanguages based on the concatenation of invariable nominal and verbal elements.The second remark is poetical. It is the very extensive use of oxymorons to thepoint of being able to qualify this poetry as oxymoronic. Consider the conclusion of thethird poem:

“heaven is a mirage in human zoo”

The use of the copula “is” comes from the English language but is not necessaryand the line without it would be a lot more striking in its appositive or concatenated styleand closer to a Dhammapada verse:“heaven a mirage in human zoo”

“Heaven” and “mirage” are of course oxymoronic, at least if we consider “heaven” tobe a real concept for the poet and not a sarcastic or humoristic reference to something hedoes not believe in. That would be trite, not poetic. At the same time “mirage” and “humanzoo” are oxymoronic since a “mirage” is what man sees that is not there. If the zoo is real,then the mirage is impossible. But associated to “heaven” it then gives to humanity agullible and totally absurd reality. They cannot know, even heaven, because they can onlysee mirages. Finally “human” and “zoo” are oxymoronic because man generally keepsanimals in a zoo. How can man keep himself in a zoo of his own making? It is this intricateoxymoronic use of what is basically metaphors that makes this poetry striking.This second remark leads me to a third one. There is only one allusion to Buddhabut the poems are deeply and pervasively inhabited by some Buddhists concepts.The most obvious one is “dukkha,” that concepts that states that since everything ischanging (anicca) life is a vast cycle of birth-growth/decay-death-rebirth. The author isobsessed by his own decay and death. Poem 8 lists his ailments:

He refers to that decaying process over and over again. His conclusive formula inPoem 8, “onanist excursion,” is perfect to describe the hypercondriac onanisticmasturbation of his own self and body, ailments and evils. And this onanism is rightlyidentified in poem 29 as “wank without wad” which, beyond the trilogy of initial /w/, thedukkha cycle, the sterile attachment (tanha) of the poet makes that poet a wanker withoutwad hence a sterile wanker practicing sterile wanking producing nothing.

This absolute domination of this totally negative dukkha that brings no rebirth at allbecause of the poet’s excessive attachment (tanha) to his own decay (dukkha) is seen asan evil of the modern world in poem 14. The growth of concrete buildings makes flowersdie, makes tree be felled and disappear, and leaves nothing but a world that produces itsown full sterility and frigidity. A world that has the wank without the wad.

A last remark along that line is the evasiveness and lack of precise presence of theconcepts of anicca, constant change, and of anatta, absence of soul or self. The latter istotally denied and never mentioned. The soul I even asserted here and there and the selfis omnipresent. But the former can be found though not constantly. Poem 14 is typical ofthat constant change anicca but as a catastrophe, an irreversible evolution to destruction,what he calls “a calamity” and this calamity, this dukkha, in the absence of any rebirth, isthe end of life, of the world. On the other hand poem 13 is a lot more balanced, probablydue to the reference to Buddha. And he asserts that the “loss” due to this constant changeand decay “returns to wholeness,” hence leads to some rebirth, though “returns” is not theproper word since it is not going back to what it used to be but a new wholeness reachedbeyond the destruction of the old wholeness. “Return” is too retrospective.We could and should examine the many variations of that theme.

A final remark has to be done about the last poems: they tend to become political,ideological. The theme was touched already in Poem 9 “politics of corruption.”This corruption is like the rotten apple in a basket of apples. It makes the poet’s “face ugly.” “There is no beauty or holiness left in the naked nation.” “I weep for . . . the faces they deface with clay dreams.” And this clay is not coming from some messianic holy city, but it is the heavy and dirty clay that can be found in any field, in the ground and that turns into mud with some monsoon rain.

But the most powerful poem along that line is poem 24 entitled “Degeneration.” Butthis poem asserts the existence of gods. We are far from Buddhism and its godless world,its soulless man and its selfless (without self) human being.

“When gods are out to teach me a lesson. . . my prophet friends . . . the palmists . . .they seek money for rituals, stones or mantraswhile God gives us the best in life gratis. . . now or tomorrow they all deludein the maze of expediency and curse”

His prophet friends and the psalmists are obviously exploiting the world and people.But I can hardly accept the idea that god gives anything gratis and it contradicts the firstline, because with all we get from nature, and even from god if you want, there is always alesson and the price of this lesson can be extremely expensive.

Poem 27 goes even farther and states:

“. . . a professional loser. . . strays a preacherto revolution”

It is clear for the poet there is no honest revolutionary man, there is no honestrevolution which is nothing but a perversion. But this revolution can perverts a preacher,that is to say “a psalmist” or “a prophet friend” and we know what we have to think aboutsuch people. So a preacher does not need much convincing to be turned revolutionary ifthat provides him with the electoral and financial support he needs, he wants, hecontemplates, he greedily craves for.

So, is this poetry worth reading? Probably yes because it states clearly that if you do not have a spiritual inspiration you are reduced to your bleeding anus and exploitation by all kinds of fake prophets and greedy preachers.

One thing though is missing. It is quite obvious love is good but sex is a reduction toan instant of pleasure, to a wank with a wad, but it leads nowhere beyond that wad. Whatabout though a sexual partner, a love mate of any sexual orientation imaginable? Let’s saythere is nearly none except a woman a couple of times, particularly in poem 30, the lastpoem of the collection. But that evanescent woman is quite special.

We know what we can think of a zoo, a human zoo, a zoo that is for human beingsmore than for animals. This “she” is not particularly inspiring. She is not a soul mate. Sheis not mind mate. She probably is no love mate either, just a keeper and maybe a sexmate or even only a body mate that likes her men oblivious of their ailments and reducedto their admiration towards the animals who become an image in the mirror of the eyes ofthe voyeur audience of a zoo when the direction voyeur-voyee becomes blurred and thevoyeur is the voyee and the voyee is the voyeur, when the ape is the watching man andthe watching man is the ape.

Don’t tell me such women don’t exist. They might prefer museums or departmentstores instead of zoos but the project, the intention is the same: make their partnerscontemplative voyeurs as if they were mute mirrors of what they see in front of themselvesand nothing else.

About Me

Ram Krishna Singh is a university professor whose main fields of
interest consist of Indian English writing, especially poetry, and English for
Specific Purposes, especially for science and technology. He was born on 31
December 1950 in Varanasi, India. Apart from a BA earned in 1970, he gained his
MA in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University in 1972 and Ph D from
Kashi Vidyapith, Varanasi, in 1981. He also obtained a Diploma in Russian in
1972. Dr Singh started his career in journalism, as a Compilation Officer in
the District Gazetteers Department, Lucknow, 1973, and a Journalist with the
Press Trust of India, New Delhi, 1973-74. Changing to teaching he became a
Lecturer at the Royal Bhutan Polytechnic, Deothang, Bhutan, 1974-76. Joining
the Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad as a Lecturer from 1976-83, he then rose
to Assistant Professor in 1983 and full Professor and Head of the Institute’s
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences since 1993 to 2011. He is now
Professor of English (HAG).

A reviewer, critic and contemporary poet who writes in Indian English, Dr.
Singh is the author of more than 160 research articles and 175 book reviews. He
has published 39 books, including: Savitri : A Spiritual Epic (Criticism,
1984); My Silence (poems, 1985); Sound and Silence (edited articles on
Krishna Srinivas, 1986); Indian English
Writing : 1981-1985 : Experiments with Expression (ed., 1987, rept. 1991); Using English in Science and Technology (textbook,
1988, rev. and rept, 2000); Recent Indian
English Poets : Expressions and Beliefs (ed. 1992); Two Poets: R.K. Singh (I DO NOT QUESTION) Ujjal Singh Bahri (THE
GRAMMAR OF MY LIFE) (poems, 1994); General
English Practice (textbook, 1995); Anger
in Action : Explorations of Anger in Indian Writing in English (ed.,1997); My Silence and Other Selected Poems :
1974-1994 (poems, 1996); Above the
Earth’s Green (poems, 1997); Psychic
Knot : Search for Tolerance in Indian English Fiction (ed., 1998); New Zealand Literature : Some Recent Trends
(ed.,1998); Every Stone Drop Pebble (haiku,
1999); Multiple-Choice General English
for UPSC Competitive Exams (textbook, 2001); Cover to Cover (poems, 2002). Pacem
in Terris ( haiku, English and Italian, 2003), Communication : Grammar and Composition ( textbook, 2003), Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri : Essays on Love,
Life and Death ( Critical articles, 2005), Teaching English for Specific Purposes : An Evolving Experience (
Research articles and review essays, 2005), Voices
of the Present: Critical Essays on Some Indian English Poets (2006), The River Returns (tanka and haiku
collection, 2006), English as a Second
Language: Experience into Essays (ed. research articles, 2007), English Language Teaching: Some Aspects
Recollected (ed. research articles, 2008), Sexless Solitude and Other Poems (2009), Mechanics of Research Writing (2010), Sense and Silence: Collected Poems (2010), New and Selected Poems Tanka and Haiku (2012), and I Am No Jesus and Other Selected Poems, Tanka and Haiku (2014). His works have been
anthologized in about 160 publications, while his editorial activities extend
to include guest-editing of Language Forum, 1986, 1995, and Creative Forum,
1991, 1997, 1998, besides being co-editor of the latter publication from
1987-90, General Editor of Creative Forum New Poets Series, and service on the
editorial boards of Canopy, Indian Book
Chronicle, Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Reflections, Titiksha,
International Journal of Translation, Poetcrit, Impressions of Eternity (ie),
and SlugFest. He has evaluated about 50
PhD theses from various universities. He has also edited the ISM Newsletter for
about five years.